ISLAMABAD: Embezzlements and kickbacks in just one project- renovation work of Afghanistan’s biggest prison facility costed US tax payers millions of dollars, indicating how billions of dollars would possibly have been wasted in financial anomalies during the war since 2001.
In what is considered its longest war so far, it is estimated that the US has spent around one trillion dollars in Afghanistan during the past 18 years.
Contractors gave economic jerk to States Department, when a subsidiary watchdog agency of United States Defence section ‘Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR)’, in its report in 2016, unearthed massive corruption in the renovation project of Pol-i-Charkhi budgeting $20 million.
Pul-i-Charkhi also known as Afghan National Detention Facility is the largest prison in Afghanistan located in East Kabul. Construction of the jail began in the 1970s by order of former president Mohammed Dawood Khan and was completed in 1980s.
The prison became notorious for torture and executions after the 1978 Saur Revolution as well as during the 10-year Soviet war that followed. Between April 1978 and the Soviet invasion of December 1979, the communist People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) under Noor Muhammad Taraki executed around 27,000 political prisoners at Pul-i-Charki.
Pol-i-Charkhi prison was built to house approximately 5,000 prisoners. In June 2009, the Department of State’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) awarded a contract with a modified valued of $20.2 million to Al-Watan Construction Company (AWCC) to replace prison block holding areas with individual cells and renovate the prison’s infrastructure, including its plumbing, electrical, and septic systems.
The Department of State also funded three capital improvement projects—a potable water tower, a commercial power upgrade, and a new staff barracks—at a cost of $5.3 million. All three projects were transferred to Afghan prison authorities.
According to the documents, available with The News Today, more than 5 years after renovation work began, Pol-i-Charkhi prison was not been completed, and the contract had to be terminated.
The Department of State’s (State) Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) paid Al-Watan Construction Company (AWCC) $18.5 million for work performed on a contract valued at $20.2 million, even though AWCC only completed about 50 percent of the required work.
Furthermore, an independent firm identified defective workmanship, including the failure to backfill trenches, improper roof flashing, soil settlement issues, and the failure to connect six back-up generators to the prison’s power grid.
In 2007, the U.S. military began transferring some of its detainees from Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan to the Pul-i-Charkhi prison. By January 2008, 125 detainees from Bagram detention facility and 32 detainees from the U.S. Guantanamo Bay detention camp were transferred to Pul-i-Charkhi. By September 2009, the U.S. had transferred some 250 former detainees from its Guantánamo detention camp to Pul-i-Charkhi, often to the shock of their waiting families, according to Human Rights First (HRF).
The United States announced that it will be shutting down its Guantanamo Bay detention camps, in Cuba. The Americans had planned to transfer most of the captives held in extrajudicial detention in Guantanamo, and in its less well known Bagram greater internment facility to Afghan custody.
The former president of United States President George W. Bush had negotiated a tentative deal with Afghan President, Hamid Karazai that the Afghans would accept prisoners from the Americans if the Americans expanded and modernized Afghan facilities and trained, and paid the salaries of the additional Afghan guards that would be required.
The initial plan called for reducing the maximum number of men held per cell from the current eight, to just two. For security reasons every cell would be equipped with its own toilet, replacing the current insecure method of letting all the captives leave their cells and share a single toilet at the end of each cell-block.
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SIGAR found that not all of AWCC’s work was completed according to contract requirements. AWCC substituted wood for metal roof trusses without authorization and covered 30-year old wood trusses with new roofing material, rather than replacing them as required under the contract.
AWCC’s work was overseen by a contracting officer representative—a State employee—who was later convicted in the United States for accepting gratuities from an INL contractor in an improper way.
The US watchdog agency found Pol-i-Charkhi prison is being used, but in an overcrowded condition with prisoners housed in hallways. The prison was designed for about 5,000 prisoners, but housed around 7,400.
On May 6, 2007, two American soldiers, Colonel James W. Harrison Jr. and Master Sergeant Wilberto Sabalu, part of the oversight team, were shot dead by one of the Afghan guards. This forced delay in construction as all the guards underwent new security checks.
A controversy was raised within the Afghan Cabinet as to which ministry would be responsible for the modernized part of the prison. By January 2008, 32 captives from the US Guantanamo facility and 125 captives from the US Bagram detention center had been transferred to Pul-i-Charkhi.
The Center for Constitutional Rights reported that all of the Afghans repatriated to Afghanistan from April 2007 were sent to the Pul-i-Charkhi prison. In a letter written to then secretary of State John F Kerry by the office of SIGAR, the watch dog agency made following recommendations including; determine the extent to which AWCC substituted wood for metal trusses or covered, rather than replaced, existing wooden trusses without authorization and take appropriate action to recoup any funds due from the contractor.
It recommended to conduct an inquiry into whether the contracting officer negotiated an equitable settlement agreement with AWCC, document all accelerated construction schedule payments, and take steps to recoup funds as appropriate.
It also recommended to conduct a cost-benefit analysis of alternative wastewater management systems, and, if warranted, reissue a Request for Information soliciting proposed solutions to managing the prison’s wastewater management needs.
SIGAR further recommended that before the follow-on renovation work and construction of the wastewater treatment plant or alternative system begins, that it has a written monitoring plan in place to oversee the work performed.
It asked to identify the scope of work and conduct a cost-benefit analysis of awarding a separate contract—on an expedited basis—to hook-up the prison’s six back-up power diesel generators.
Document revealed that Afghan contractor improperly covered 30-year-old wood trusses with new roofing material, rather than replacing them as required under the contract.
INL officials stated that “Covering existing deficient wood trusses with new roofing material would never have been approved by a U.S. government official acting in good faith.
However, AWCC performed those renovation activities under the oversight of a contracting officer’s representative (COR) who was later convicted in the United States of improperly accepting gratuities from Basirat Construction Firm.
Further, even if the COR believed he was acting in good faith in this instance; Inspection officials were unable to locate documentation authorizing this substitution, INL official stated.
On November 26, 2010, the Regional Procurement Support Office (RSPO) of US terminated AWCC’s INL-funded Pol-i-Charkhi prison renovation contract for convenience instead of default.
On September 30, 2010, the contracting officer sent a Show Cause Notice to AWCC stating that the government was considering terminating the contract for default because, in its opinion, AWCC could not complete the project by the agreed-upon date of October 31, 2010.
On November 5, 2010, the contracting officer issued a Stop Work Order which noted that AWCC’s performance was deemed unsatisfactory due to its lack of progress on the project, labor unrest at the work site, and a lack of supplies to maintain efficient progress. Then, on November 26, 2012, the RPSO contracting officer issued AWCC a termination for convenience letter.
After a 2-year negotiation that concluded in December 2012, RPSO agreed to an $18.5 million settlement with AWCC at 92 percent of the $20.2 million contract value. RPSO agreed to the settlement despite INL and Batoor reports showing that AWCC only completed about 50 percent of the work required under the contract.
The final contract modification in December 2012 reflecting a settlement agreement showed that contracting officer granted AWCC $1.9 million—out of a possible $3.6 million—in accelerated construction schedule payments, bringing the final contract cost to $18.5 million.
While State said in comments to a draft of this SIGAR report that it paid only $450,000 in additional accelerated payments to the contractor, only the $1.9 million in accelerated payments stated in the final contract modification appears in documents that watchdog agency received from State.
Pol-i-Charkhi prison’s renovation remained far from finished, despite spending $18.5 million or almost all of the $20.2 million contract value. Further, some of the contractor’s renovation work was not completed according to contract requirements—most notably wood roof trusses were substituted without authorization for metal trusses and some 30-year old wood trusses were simply covered with new roofing material rather than being replaced as the contract required.
A corrupt COR was a factor in the oversight breakdown of the renovation work, and another COR who resigned from his position was a factor in the financial settlement for AWCC. SIGAR recommended the Secretary of State direct INL to determine the extent to which AWCC substituted wood for metal trusses or covered, rather than replaced, existing wooden trusses without authorization, and take appropriate action to recoup any funds due from the contractor.
Another recommendation made by SIGAR was to conduct an inquiry into whether the contracting officer negotiated an equitable settlement agreement with AWCC, document all accelerated construction schedule payments, and take steps to recoup funds as appropriate.
